It’s overcast and chilly as the Minnesota Twins are preparing to take on the Kansas City Royals in game two of a three-game season opening set at Target Field. It’ll be left-hander Hector Santiago toeing the rubber for the Twins against righty Ian Kennedy for the Royals. More on that in a bit.
The Royals aren’t hitting on the field today and the Twins just wrapped up batting practice with a number of the players bundled up to battle the elements. It’s dry here at the stadium but cool, as it’s in the mid-40s here during pregame and only expected to get up into the low-50s by this afternoon. Too bad the Twins are taking off for Chicago after tomorrow’s game — it’s supposed to reach 70 degrees this weekend here in the Twin Cities.
The win for the Twins on Monday was their first to open the season since 2008, and they’re now in search of their first 2-0 start to the season since opening the 2007 season, when they opened the season with a three-game sweep of the Baltimore Orioles at the Metrodome.
Here’s how the Twins will line up today:
Here’s how the Royals will counter:
Five of the top six spots in the order are the same, but there are some notable changes. Max Kepler will hit second against a right-hander — something Mike Berardino of the St. Paul Pioneer Press suggested could be a regular thing on Tuesday’s episode of Midwest Swing — for the first time in his career, while Eduardo Escobar is getting his first start of the season at short. Eddie Rosario is being bumped up to No. 8 in the order while Robbie Grossman will DH and bat ninth after batting second against lefty Danny Duffy in the opener.
LISTEN: Mike Berardino joins Midwest Swing to break down the Twins’ season-opening win over the Royals
There’s some wisdom in batting Grossman ninth even if batting the DH there is unconventional. Having a guy whose primary skill is getting on base in front of a power hitter in Dozier capitalizes on two facets of having the latter at the top of the order. First of all, batting Dozier leadoff means he’ll — barring injury — have the most plate appearances on the team at the end of the season. In the simplest form, does it make sense to want Dozier to bat more than anyone else on the team? Sure. Beyond that, having someone who gets on base frequently in front of him means more chances for having guys on when Dozier hits a home run. It’s not conventional wisdom, but it makes some sense.
How’s this for a couple weird notes:
And here’s the full list of players who have batted ninth for the Twins and started at DH:
On the bump for the Twins today is Santiago, whose stretch with the club was a bit uneven after he came over at the trade deadline from the Angels. Santiago made 11 starts with the Twins and posted an unsightly 5.58 ERA. The Twins tried to tweak his mechanics a bit when he came over with poor results, as he posted a 10.89 ERA through his first four starts (23 ER in 19 IP). Santiago went back to his old ways and posted a 3.19 ERA over his final seven starts while holding opposing batters to a .210/.294/.389 batting line.
Spring training stats don’t mean a ton, but Santiago didn’t have a strong stretch down there. He posted a 5.54 ERA and a 1.62 WHIP, though he did strike out 12 batters with four walks over his 13 innings of work. Santiago is ironically the anti-Ricky Nolasco — the guy he was, along with Alex Meyer of course, traded for — in that he’s a consistent FIP-beater. That is, he’s posted a solid career ERA of 3.84 — the best career mark among Twins starters — despite posting a FIP of 4.73 over 714.2 career frames. What FIP doesn’t like about Santiago is that despite his affinity for strikeouts (8.0 career K/9), he walks a lot of batters (4.0 BB/9) and allows a ton of fly balls. That’ll make him susceptible to home runs — especially over the last two years — but it also means he’ll induce a lot of popups and meaningless fly outs with a good outfield defense behind him this season.
It’s certainly an approach.
Santiago also likes to work up in the zone with a low-90s fastball, and will throw the kitchen sink at hitters in an effort to get them out. Santiago threw five different pitches at least three percent of the time last season, and is strangely a fly ball guy despite throwing a “sinker” — according to PITCHf/x — nearly two-thirds of the time. Santiago defies convention, but maybe that’s what makes him solid?
Kennedy has pitched somewhat similarly to Santiago in the last couple seasons. He’s been really bit by the long ball — especially the last two seasons — and he’s been a strikeouts, walks and fly balls guy as well. Last year his ERA (3.68) was a full run better than his FIP (4.67), though he benefitted greatly from pitching in front of a strong Royals defense (.268 BABIP allowed, 20 points better than his career average).
Kennedy was a hot-shot Yankees prospect around the time current Twins righty Phil Hughes was before he was traded in a dizzying deal that resulted in Curtis Granderson with the Yankees, Austin Jackson and Max Scherzer with the Tigers and today’s starter with the Diamondbacks. He was traded by the Snakes to the Padres for Matt Stites and Joe Thatcher and then landed a big contract (five years, $70 million) with the Royals before last season.
Kennedy’s fastball averaged 92.2 mph last season with the Royals — the highest of his career — which is an impressive spike for a guy on the wrong side of 30. His repertoire consists of mostly a four-seam fastball — he’ll mix in a two-seamer here and there — with a knucklecurve, change and a cutter/slider depending on whose definition you prefer. The change has been his go-to swinging strike pitch over his career, but he gets ample whiffs on his fastballs (9.4 percent last year) while his change and knucklecurve are big-time groundball pitches (50-plus percent last year).
If the Twins can get to Kennedy early with a home run or two, it should be a successful day. The ball should be flying against these guys — both Kennedy and Santiago — though the cool weather could tamp things down a bit.
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Notes
- The Twins beat Kansas City in the last matchup last year, and now have consecutive wins over the Royals for the first time since April 15-16 of last year. They haven’t beaten the Royals three times in a row since April 11-13, 2014.
- According to a team release, Joe Mauer is hitless in his last 23 plate appearances against the Royals.
- Mauer made his 13th Opening Day start with the club on Monday to tie him with Harmon Killebrew for the club lead. Rod Carew and Kent Hrbek made 12 and Kirby Puckett had 11.
- Monday was Dozier’s 700th career game in the major leagues.
- The Twins scored seven runs in the season-opening win over the Royals. They didn’t score their seventh run of the season last year until the fourth game of the season — a 4-3 loss at Kauffman Stadium against the Royals.
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